patch
by Salmon Cat
Summary: For some reason, among her ever-growing list of rebellious things to do, Sam has added 'smoking'. And now, she's hooked. Cat finds out about this and is not too happy, so she tries to get Sam to quit. [A cutesy, not-too-angsty, Puckentine one-shot.]


**A/N: A Puckentine one-shot, yay! Haven't written one in a while, and this one just kinda came out of nowhere, but I kinda liked how it came out. I hope you enjoy this little thing I thought up.**

**A couple of disclaimers: _Sam and Cat_ don't belong to me and all that, and unicorn nicotine patches do not exist, as far as I know. And, most importantly, smoking is bad for you. Don't do it, don't try it. It's not a solution for your love life dilemmas and you will not find unicorn nicotine patches to help you quit. I repeat, smoking is bad for you. Sam thinks so, Cat thinks so, and Dice and Goomer think so too.**

**Alright, back to the one-shot...**

* * *

"Did you _seriously_ get me unicorn nicotine patches?" I asked, half incredulously, half in disgust.

The fancy, purple-and-pink colored pack of patches sat dumbly on my lap. I gotta admit, I've done some _really_ stupid things in the past simply because Cat asked me to, but _this_? I am _not_ going to be wearing unicorn shaped nicotine patches - or _any_ nicotine patches, really - anytime soon.

It had been three weeks since Cat walked in on me smoking in our bathroom. We didn't talk after the incident for about two days... I was a little angry, for three specific reasons. One, I felt that our bathroom had a perfectly functional ventilation system, because I looked it up on the internet and made sure, and Two, she was supposed to _knock_ before coming in, I mean, what if I was taking a wazz? But most importantly, because Three, she was really quick to tell me to quit, listing down the negative effects of smoking ("It makes your lungs look really ugly!") even after I reminded her that I had never - and would never - come in between _her_ disturbing Bibble addiction. I mean, right? I let her eat that thing as much as she wants.

We made up pretty quickly about the matter, though, but it _was_ a little messy. I'd promised her that I'd stop, but I had one more pack lying just under my bed, and I couldn't resist... So one day, she spotted me smoking outside at the Bots parking lot and we argued a little and then she snatched my pack away and threw it to the other side of the road. I have not touched a single cigarette in exactly twelve days now, and I am in a constant bad mood because of it.

"It was on sale, online!" Cat said, absolutely beaming. Her eyes trail from the patches on my lap and up to my face. I know what she's doing, with that wide-eyed, expectant look on her face.

"Cat, no," I sighed. "I'm not gonna wear your unicorn nicotine patches, okay?"

"But it'll help-"

"Forget about it," I snapped, waving her off. I got to my feet and let the pack fall. "I'll stop the smoking, alright? But I'm not gonna... wear those."

**...**

"See, Sam, it says here that people smoke as a way to deal with stress," Cat explained, running her finger along the sentence displayed on her PearBook's screen.

It has now nearly been five weeks since my last cigarette, and Cat has not left me alone about it_ at all_. I _feel_ like the problem, for her, isn't the fact that I smoked, but _why _I'd started smoking in the first place. I'd avoided talking about this for weeks now, because, well... I don't like being sappy and all, but it's _her_. She's why I started smoking.

You should have seen her that day. I'd been thinking about it - about _her_ - all day, about what my feelings might mean, about my recent actions... About me being _nice_ just to make her happy. Well, just to _see_ her happy... It was getting too much, and the thing about Cat Valentine is... The thing about _her_, is she would do and say all these casual things without realizing how nervous or ridiculously happy they make me inside. It made me angry, not at her, but at me. All the time. For days and weeks, I'd battled my feelings and thoughts. I'd tried to convince myself they were all just me being homesick. Me missing Carly and Freddie and doing iCarly with people I cared about.

It was useless, though, because I realized my life with Cat is not an after-school activity. It's not some popular web show. It goes on everyday, on the weekends and during holidays, and there are no pauses. There are no scripts. And everything nice I'd done for her were improvised on the spot, and it drove me crazy because there was just no way of expecting how things would go with Cat. Without a script, I could never get ahead of her. I could never one-up her, take _her_ by surprise once in a while... She was always the one knocking me off my feet. And I could never see it coming.

So she'd come home one day and yelled out, "Honey, I'm home!" in her sing-song airy voice, and I damn near slipped and hit myself on the head because I was thinking of her a lot that day, and I was thinking of a cute nickname to tease her with - yes, _I_ was thinking of _cute_ nicknames for _her_ - since she already had Puckle for me, and then she comes home swinging this "Honey" word around like it's no big deal. It drove me _crazy_ because she says things like that and touches me like they're completely okay things to do with... friends. I mean, Carly doesn't do that with me! With her, she treats me like I'm a younger sister. I'm that bratty, violent kid she has to always keep her eyes on because she never knows when I might burst. With Cat, it's no sisterly attention. I know that much.

That's how I took up smoking. I mean, it's no surprise, really. You think with the kind of upbringing I had, and my prison - well, _juvie_ - record, I'd never thought of smoking in my life? It was bound to happen, with people like me. The addiction part, too. I know it's bad, I know it's bad for me, and for everyone else around me. I know about all that secondhand smoke stuff... But it's hard to think about Cat and her sweetness when you're busy doing something as toxic as smoking... Well, that's why I kept at it, anyway. It was a distraction.

Now Cat's taken _that_ away from me. My only distraction. Replaced it with her damn unicorn nicotine patches (that I finally gave in to wearing). And now I'm always angry and bitter for some reason. More than usual, I mean.

We were seated on the couch, Cat busy on her PearBook, and me busy flicking mindlessly through the TV channels... I'm telling you, cancelling _That's A Drag!_ was a big mistake because there's nothing else good on TV nowadays. But anyway, we were sitting on the couch, right? And it was time for me to change my patch, and Cat was helping me with it because she didn't trust me enough to use it on my own (she thinks I secretly eat them when really I just throw them away whenever she's not looking).

_Wish you'd be my patch_, I thought, watching her sticking the disgusting looking things all over my arm, her face scrunched up in full concentration.

"Well, that wouldn't be easy since I have school," Cat replied, looking up at me with her trademark dimpled smile.

Um, _wait_ a second. What?

"What?" I repeated, backing away from her instinctively.

No. No, no, no, _no_.

Did I really say that out loud? Wish you'd be my patch? Really? Me?

Well. Way to freakin' go, Puckett.

She let out a slight giggle and threw her skinny tan arms around me, her cheek sticking to mine. She was _literally_ on me, almost like always. "But I'll be your patch whenever you need me to!" she exclaimed, clearly enjoying how uncomfortable she was making me...

The door swings open, followed by Dice's high-pitched voice announcing, "Okay, so I've come up with a little -"

I turned around, Cat still straddling me on the couch, and my face heated up the moment I saw Dice and Goomer standing, rooted at the doorway. Dice held a bunch of charts with diagrams of cigarettes and black lungs on them in his hands, something I suspect Cat had something to do with. They were both just staring at us, though, their mouths literally gaping.

"I'm interrupting something, aren't I?" Dice asked, all smart. He was backing away. Goomer followed.

"No, no, no!" I yelled. They stopped moving immediately. "No, you're not. We were just..." I turned to look at Cat, giving her dumb and panicked eye signals to _please get off me before Goomer says something stupid_. "We were just talking, about... stuff." I finished. Very, very unconvincing.

"Ooh," Goomer said, rubbing his hands together, all excited. His low voice makes the whole thing even more awkward. "Sammy and Catty, sittin' on a couch, K - Y - S - S - I -"

"I'd stop if I were you," I warned, raising a single fist.

"Sorry," he replied, shutting up.

Dice looked from me to Cat, and then to Goomer, and then with a hushed whisper just not soft enough, he said to Goomer, "Maybe we should go..."

And before I could say or do anything, they ran out, their footsteps echoing outside, Dice still holding on to his charts. I turned to Cat, hardly believing she still wouldn't get off me after all that. I'd expected her to apologize for not getting off, or for her to get back to putting on my patch... But no. Instead, she looked at me earnestly, her eyes wide and honest, and asked, "Sam, that's not how you spell 'kissing', is it?"

**...**

It has been two full months since my last cigarette.

Three weeks and a half since I removed the last of my nicotine patch.

Every single day now, before she leaves for school, and right after she comes home from school, Cat would run and find me - sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in the bedroom, _twice _in the bathroom - and wrap her arms around me. Squeeze me as tight as she could. Smell my hair and my clothes for any possible traces of cigarette smell... And sometimes punctuate the action with a peck on my cheek.

I'd tried fighting her off the first few times, but all things considered... Things are a whole lot better now. I stopped trying to push her away after I realized she'd just hug me tighter. I let her _be my patch_, as I so stupidly put it just weeks ago... And hey, I'm not smoking anymore.

Also, I... well, I feel less guilty and conflicted about my thoughts and feelings for her. I'm less bitter about not smoking, and honestly? Just - just promise me you won't tell her this, but... I don't really mind Cat being my patch.


End file.
